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Seeing Sam’s name on his caller ID, Dean answered immediately. “Sam?” He listened for a moment, and Sam didn’t say anything, though he was pretty sure he could hear some slightly rattly breathing. “Sam,” he repeated, “can you hear me?” Still nothing. Dean quickly thanked the owner of the Tribal Museum, and was out the door on the way back to the Impala in seconds. “Sam, I’m on my way back, hang tight.” Sam still didn’t answer, but Dean kept talking, half yelling into the phone as he climbed into his car. Dammit, he shouldn’t have left Sam alone.
He drove fast, almost too fast for the narrow rural road he was on, and was back at the hotel’s parking lot in half the time it had taken him going the other direction. Once the car was parked in the spot closest to the door, he set off at a run into the hotel, through the lobby - luckily, the hotel manager wasn’t there - and down the hallway to their room. Trying the doorknob, he found that it was unlocked, which was probably not a good sign.
Dean’s stomach dropped into somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles. Sam was lying on the floor near the door to the room, his cell phone also on the floor, near his head. “Sam! Sammy!” Dean called out, but Sam didn’t react. Crouching next to Sam, Dean checked to make sure his brother was breathing - he was, a little shallow for Dean’s tastes, but definitely moving air in and out - then did a quick visual scan over his body for any blood or bruises that could indicate that he’d been attacked, but didn’t see any injuries. Okay, it looked like he had just passed out. Dean put a hand on Sam’s forehead and swore under his breath when he felt how hot it was. He shouldn’t have left the kid alone when he was clearly a little delirious already, should have at least pushed the thermometer issue a little further and gotten some tylenol into him. Well, now that Sam was unconscious he couldn’t be stubborn anymore. Dean grabbed the thermometer out of his duffel, then went into the bathroom and soaked a wash cloth with cool water. He carefully placed the thermometer under Sam’s tongue, then started wiping down his face and neck with the wet cloth. Sam remained alarmingly still, and when the thermometer finally beeped and Dean saw that it said 106.9 degrees, he knew he was going to have to do something more drastic to get Sam’s temperature back into a reasonable range before it did any major damage.
He gave Sam another gentle shake, hoping he’d wake up at least a little, but he was still down for the count. “I’ll be right back, Sammy, hang in there,” Dean said to his unconscious brother, then he went into the bathroom, started running a tub full of cold water, then grabbed the empty trash can, which he carried down the hall to the hotel’s ice machine, hoping that they had it turned on. Finally something had gone right, and the thing was filled to the top, and Dean quickly scooped ice into the trash can, spilling as much on the ground as he was actually getting in the trash can but not really caring, and when it was overflowing with ice, he ran back into the room and dumped that ice into the bath tub. One tub full of very cold water. Now he just had to get his brother into it.
This was of course not an easy task. Even if he had lost several pounds since he started the trials, Sam was still six feet four inches of solid muscle. Dean managed to half-carry-half-drag him across the bedroom and into the bathroom, then scooped Sam up in his arms in a way that he definitely wouldn’t have managed without the adrenaline rush before lowering him into the ice water. Sam reacted to that a little, wincing as his skin cooled rapidly, but didn’t wake up.
Dean knew that it would take a little time. Body temperatures didn’t decrease instantaneously. But every second felt like an hour, he didn’t know if it was even going to work, maybe he should have called an ambulance the moment he found Sam on the floor. After what Dean guessed was three or four minutes, he stuck the thermometer back into Sam’s mouth and was relieved to see that his fever had gone down to 104 - still dangerously high, still hospital-worthy under normal circumstances, but not nearly as scary as it had been before. “Sammy, come on, you’re alright, you just need to wake up.” Dean was fully aware that he was babbling, but Sam was still not showing any signs of returning to consciousness. He was half curled up, fully dressed, in a bathtub of ice water, only his head and his knees sticking up, and looked like he was just taking a nap there.
Two minutes later Sam’s fever was down another degree, and Dean was really ready for him to wake up already. He decided on wetting down his face with a cold washcloth, but when he turned around to grab the cloth, Sam slipped down so that his face was fully submerged below the ice. Dean’s initial thought was to drag him up that moment, but he decided wait a second and see if the cold on Sam’s head was enough to wake him up.
He was rewarded by some sloshing around and a big gasp from a suddenly awake Sam. Dean reached down to help his brother, but Sam pushed him away, gasping “Get off.” He was disoriented, still gasping for air, but he was awake.
Satisfied that Sam wasn’t going to drown in the bathtub in the next five seconds, Dean straightened up, holding his hands up in an I’m-not-going-to-hurt-you position. “Take it easy, Sam.” Sam was standing up, and Dean stood ready to steady him if he needed to, but Sam was managing fine on his own. “Hey, whoa whoa, take it easy.” Sam was still sputtering, shivering, wiping the water off his face with his hands. Dean turned to pick up a dry towel to wrap around his brother. “I found you on the floor, passed out, your temperature was a hundred and seven, I had to force it down or you were toast.”
Sam was still shivering, but after a few seconds he was a lot more coherent. “He’s here, Dean. Metatron is here, I know it, I can hear him.”